couple questions

filmy wrote on 6/6/2003, 10:06 PM
So I have started to edit a feature with VV 4.0c and I am hoping to actually be able to do the whole thing with VV so I can prove that VV can be used for this. Thusly just a few first thoughts/questions.

1> First freeze up was after I named bins (because as far as I can tell I am unable to just import the folder as a bin) and brought in the media from all the same named folders. Then I saved the project. The next time I opened the project VV had to load all files in the bins (?) as it said "loading 1 of..." "loading 2 of..." and so on. It got up to about 200 and it locked up. Had to reboot. When I reopened the project it seemd to pick up where it left off - loaded all media in the bins witn no lock up. Now everytime I open the project it does not say "loading 1 of..." but it does take a while to load the project, even before I had anything on the timeline. Is this normal? Is it a bug? I mean freezing when loading media into bins. This topic has been touched on before in reguards to stills but thus far this project contains no stills, only DV files.

2> Weird lock up here - I was moving a file on the track. I right clicked on an event and started to drag it to the right. Now I wish I could be exact with telling you what I did more but I can't because all I wanted to do was just drag the clip and what ended up happening is VV took over and just "ran" with the clip...by itself...in slow motion. I could not stop it. VV took over the entire system with this neat little trick...ctl+alt+del did nothing. I had to shut down the computer. Bug? Anyone else have this happen to them? To give a visual - VV was still "running" the timeline was moving to the right, the clip was moving (being dragged) to the right. It "locked" onto the mouse cursor and away it went with no help from me.

3> Just a little issue with the bins that may have been mentioned before. If you add an event to the timeline and decide you don't want it you 'go back'. Now what happens when you choose Edit > Undo Media Drop in Track (Ctrl+Z) is the
Bins redraw and dump you out into the 'All Media' section, NOT the single folder you were working in. A minor hassle but still something that hopefully can be 'fixed'. The redraw only happens, and happens everytime, when you do the "Undo Media Drop in Track" method.

4> The preset issue. You save audio or video preset and when you go into another user the presets are not there. In itself this is fine, no problems. But the issues become having an easy way to load these presets on A) Another system B) Another user (log in on same system or on a network). Currently the 'easy' way is to go into regedit and export the settings and then load those settings on the other users system, or just the other users log-in. How hard would it be to just be able to load a preset for a folder *and* actually be able to located that folder from within VV? In case that wasn't fully clear - With any of the save options (Audio, Video, Video track FX [Filter Packages]) Why can't you A) Choose a folder to save the preset in B) be able to open that folder and preset in another VV project on another system or user? (And no, dragging the preset folder over alone will not do it. You need to drag the folder over and export the reg tree for that entry)

5> The whole locking audio/video, ripple edit and so on could be better. It seems to work when it feels like it. For example I can re-size an event from the left and the audio and video are fine. Sometimes If I want to move the entire event left or right/up or down, the video or audio will move alone. If I decide I want to delete an event and I hit the 'delete' key, unless I am carefull to highlight both video AND audio, only one or the other will be deleted. Other times the auto ripple fuction doesn't want to do what it should - you can drop in an event and instead of everything pushing back, the video will just overlay what you already have but the audio will push back. Sometimes all I want to do is drop in an overlay, on a new track, and unless I turn off the Auto Ripple everything will push back. In other words sometimes it works the right way and other times when you want it to work the right way it doesn't. It is random and yes I have "ignore event grouping" on when I want to adjust picture but not audio, or vice versa, and yes I have the "All Tracks, Markers, and Regions" selected and so on. For me I think this is probably a combination of things - Proably the concept of Assemble edit and Insert Edit applies here but I don't see a way to just "insert Audio" or "insert video". Yes you can select "Affected track" but the problem is sometimes you want to just insert video with no audio and have all tracks move accordingly. Other times you want to insert video into a track and not have anything move. In both these cases you are forced to bring in audio and than delete it. Not sure what would be and easy solution to this. I know with Premiere it is sort of automatic - if you have the ripple set to on if you drop an event onto a track with video it will push back all tracks and, without changing any settings, if you drop an event above a track it will not push back anything. Also you can lock off audio or video tracks so when you want to drop on audio or video only that is what it will do. You can Mute or Solo with VV but you don't seem to be able to lock a track. An event, yes. The entire project, yes. But just locking one track - no. (Ok - selecting all events on a track you could do it, but a simple "track lock button" would be easier) Like I said this is sort of a lot of things under one roof so to speak, and that is part of it for me as well. Instead of several different buttons and drop downs it would be easier, I feel, to just have a universal "sync" type button. "On" would mean audio and video that are brought in together stay togeter - delete the event and both audio and video go bye-bye, move the event and both audio and video move and so on. "Off" would mean you could move, delete, cut the audio or video seperate. As for the ripple edit - It works, sort of, as is. But maybe have the concept of 'assemble' and 'insert' worked into it better and tie it into video and/or audio insert.

Ok, now I am ready for the "What are you crazy? This is how it works" comments. :)

Thanks

Comments

Grazie wrote on 6/7/2003, 3:43 AM
1 - Yup - I like better control over the Advance Capture to Project Bins too

2 - Nope aint had this one - yet! - I've sometimes had to recharge my cordless mouse when I get strange mosue control "features"

3 - Yup me too. Thought it was just me - Good point. A "Leave All Bins On View" Default would be neat

4 - Don't use multi user - Can't comment other than saying I've had Presets migrate through my system from when I used to use Video Factory! I thought that was really neat! - Presets I made in VF now in Vegas4.0c . . . no loss of workflow=time=money . .

5 - Filmy, apologies for being dense, but could you break this down a bit. You're speaking of - for me at least - a very complex function. Others will/might see their way through it. I'd likke to understand it a bit more. I will say getting to understnad the flexibility of moving stuff about took me some time.

Nah - you aint crazy - you might wanna stop pulling yer hair out though! ;-)

Best regards

Grazie
filmy wrote on 6/7/2003, 5:49 PM
>>5 - Filmy, apologies for being dense, but could you break this down a bit. You're speaking of - for me at least - a very complex function. Others will/might see their way through it. I'd likke to understand it a bit more. I will say getting to understnad the flexibility of moving stuff about took me some time.<<

Sure Grazie.

Some of these terms are more film than video but hopefully this is clearer. When you shoot with sync sound you have audio to go with the picture. That much probably is an easy one to get for everyone. Now - in a logical world, with video, audio is layed down with the picture and if you capture both audio and picutre than hopefully you end up with a video file that has audio in sync with the picture - locked together. So when you are editing a dialog scene, for example, you first might do a basic A/B edit - just taking the shots/takes you want and put them onto the timeline. In itself this is easy enough.

Now come the issues I was talking about. Say I want to shorten a shot, rearange some dialog or just plain delete a shot from the timeline. Well one could think that all you had to do was to click on the shot you wanted to work on and than work with it - say delete it. So you click on that shot and hit delete. But wait - if you clicked on the picture than the audio is still there and if you clicked on the audio and hit delete than the picture is still there. The "ignore event grouping" button doesn't seem to matter on this issue and from what I can see there isn't any other option to "lock audio to picture" or, in my suggestion, "sync on" button. This would effect other things edit wise as well - cutting the head or tail of a shot would keep the sync. Moving a shot would keep the audio with it. right now it is hit and miss for the most part - sometimeswith it turned on the audio and video stay together, other times I find myself moving just the picture while the audio stays behind or vice versa.

The other thing(s) I mentioned along the same lines was how the "Auto Ripple" button worked. Right now it seems pretty straight forward - turn it on and when you do an edit all the other edits/events will be automaticly adjusted. Turn it off and nothing happens to the rest of the project when you make an edit. Well, that sounds good but what really happens seems to depend on what you do and what option you select. I am concerned on an editing level first so the "marks", "regions" and "bus tracks" don't concern me *at this second*. So edit wise what the options are than are 1> Off - meaning nothing happens. 2> On - "Affected Tracks" meaning only the track you edit is rippled 3> On - "All Tracks" meaning that the entire timeline, all tracks, will be affected when you make an edit. So for me really the only 'good' part is "All tracks" because if you were to only change "Affected Tracks" it would throw everything else out of whack. So I guess if you want to be really really simple - it is either "Auto Ripple" on or off.

Now, again, in concept that is fine but it isn't really all that (doesn't) happen. If I have shot 'A' and shot 'B' and I edit thusly - 'A' 'B' and I decide I want to insert picture only somehwere I can put it onto a new video track with the "Auto Ripple" off. Now this sort of works out fine because it is an insert and I am not changing anything else on the enitre project....or am I? Go back to what I said about the sync audio - say this shot has audio. You now have brought in both picture AND audio even though you only wanted the picture. Now you have to delete the audio portion from the timeline and because you had the "Auto Ripple" off you may find this audio has just dropped itself over the existing audio. Same goes for an audio only insert - drop in the audio and if it is locked to picture you will get that as well, possibly droppped onto and over your existing picture. See the problem? If there was, perhaps, a simple button that allowed "audio only" or "picture only" AND an "insert" mode that problem would not exist. Now for audio you sort of, kind of, not really, have something like this - each audio track has an "arm for record" button. I am talking about the same type of thing, but it would be an 'insert' button - you turn it on at a track level and you can drop picture or audio onto the track that has the insert button(s) clicked on. If you want both audio and picture you would turn on an audio track and a video track button and just do the insert - and in theory VV could be made smart enough to know you are not doing an assemble edit but an insert edit, thusly you would not have to worry about if "ripple edit" was on or off.

There are other little things in this same topic area but that is sort of gist of it. Keep in mind I am also looking ahead to audio mixing, which is why I love VV anyway, and for putting in effects, ambiences, foley and music this is not really a problem but when I am cutting the dialog I can see this being a major headache, also as well when I am cutting the location tracks for putting together the M&E tracks for foreign sales.
Grazie wrote on 6/8/2003, 1:31 AM
Ho! - Thanks Filmy.

It's early Sunday morning - I'm going to spend sometime experimenting with V4.0c to hassle your observations within a Vegas session. Nothing like a challenge on a damp, overcast, miserable, chilly June Sunday in London.

Thanks for spelling it out for me Filmy. Well appreciated. Won't promise any clearer "How To" responses, but wanted you to know I'm gonna give it go - yeah?

Please have a look at my Video Bus post - any thoughts there?

Grazie
Grazie wrote on 6/8/2003, 2:57 AM
Okay!

Deletion to Both Audio and Video:
1 - Hold done SHFT - LEFT click on AUDIO of the event: Notice that the Video part gets selected as well.

2 - Right click >> Drop Down menu: Select Delete - Both Audio and Video gets zapped!

So... Hld Shft>>Left click on audio>>Right Click>>Select Delete - Both Gone.

I've also discovered that depending WHERE the T/L Cursor is sitting - ie which Event it is presently effecting - you can control the "rotaion" of Event slection around that "Shft-Clicked" Event grouping. I'm still experimenting!!!

I'll get close to the other stuff soon.

Anyway, have a go - This is such a fundamental question you've asked - I've been very lax in not getting my head around this in the past.

Best regards

Grazie


filmy wrote on 6/8/2003, 8:17 AM
Ok, I should have been clearer - yes I know you *can* delete both audio and video and I know the methods you mention but what I was saying that you can just decide, say, "oh I don't like cut 154 and I am going to delete that shot" and just click and hit delete. Sometimes it works ok, other times, as I have said, you only get the audio or picture to delete. In Premiere you have the option to "lock" sections of Audio and picture together if they aren't already tied together. With VV you have event grouping but I don't think you should have to 'group' sync sound that is already in sync and I don't think the extra step should be needed to just delete a sync take you don't like. 'KISS' is a good moto in this case. That is why I sort of feel that a 'Sync on' 'Sync off' switch would be perfect.
farss wrote on 6/8/2003, 8:53 AM
I have to agree with filmy, this is somethig that causes me major grief and I haven't got as far as trying anything long in VV. A simple example is capture one bit of video, VV is smart enough to group the A/V. Then spilt the event in two, hey presto second event no longer has its A/V grouped. It seems the grouping is kept in the track header but this isn't copied into the new event.

One other thing thats missing is a resync command, Premier has it and its a godsend when you inadvertently slip a track. Where this whole area is going to become a nightmare is with 5.1 sound. Prabably fine IF you had just one 5.1 track but Dv doesn't support that. What your mostly going to do is record another stereo pair on say a MD recorder and bring that in as well. Apart from grouping those tracks, which as you say is a pretty flaky way to work it could soon become a major headache.

Trying to work with folley tracks would be even worse, some of those events will overlap cuts in say dialogue tracks.

Whats even worse there's no way to see whats grouped with what, you might have an audio event on track 8 that needs to maintain a relationship with a video event but there's several video events in between. I know you're supposed to handle a lot of this through workflow (not VVs strongest area anyway) and maybe a lot of these issues come about because VV is so flexible, it doesn't seem to tie you down to any particular way of doing things.
Grazie wrote on 6/8/2003, 3:26 PM
So, Guys - Where do we go from here?

Regards

Grazie
filmy wrote on 6/9/2003, 3:51 PM
>>> Where do we go from here?<<<

Wait for a reply from SonicDennis or SonicEPM or someone else from SoFo on the subjects.
BrianStanding wrote on 6/9/2003, 4:51 PM
I can help with one aspect of this discussion:
if you want to drop just the audio or just the video track on the timeline, use the right mouse button to click-and-drag. You'll get a menu that asks you if you want audio only or video only across either time or across tracks (whatever that means!).

This solves the "have to delete audio afterwards" problem.

The rest of this, I agree is a little tricky in Vegas. FWIW, there are some scripts around (see the Scripting forum, or Excalibur) that let you re-sync video and audio.

Hope this helps... some.
BPB wrote on 6/18/2003, 7:22 PM
great discussion I enjoyed and learned from your posts thanks
bryan